Eddie Mann (left) and Harry McLeod in I Play For Me at the White Bear Theatre, London
I Play For Me continues in a double bill with Kathy Kirby: Icon at the White Bear Theatre, London until 8 November.
Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩
As part of Mihara Donegan’s double bill at the White Bear alongside Kathy Kirby: Icon, this production feels very much like the ‘B’ side to the main attraction. David Cantor’s fictional piece, nicely interwoven with appearances by ‘real life’ Kirby and her manager, Bert Ambrose (Jeremy Gagan), is a somewhat curious, but in parts, engaging tale of a 1960s bad boy of pop who struggles to make it, then hits the creative and personal buffers when he does.
It’s a major plus that Eddie Mann, playing long-haired, rock rebel with plenty of causes, Elliot Figueroa, is a bona fide musician, strumming his guitars with manic enthusiasm, a devilish glint in his eye and rebellion in his blood. The action takes place mainly on board a cross-channel ferry to France, a setting as about as un rock’n’roll as you can get, but which strips away all the glamour, facade and pretentiousness of the business in an instant and leaves us with the two totally opposite main protagonists – Figueroa and Billy-Boy (Harry McLeod), a terribly vulnerable, nervous youth in a knitted tank top with mild mental health special needs and even more special dietary ones.
At times, the dialogue between them flounders like a Ro-Ro ferry caught in stormy waters, but their disparate backgrounds, ambitions and personalities make for a quite charming, albeit fleeting relationship, and that’s to both actors’ credit. Some decent live music also helps, of course, Mann really getting his teeth (not in the Hendrix sense) into the opening ‘She’s Not There’ (Argent) and ‘Friday On My Mind’ (Harry Vanda and George Young), sound engineer Lloyd Morris producing a quality sound in such compact surroundings.
Probably the best moment is when Elliot sings through gritted teeth and against his creative principles, ‘I Want to Be Happy’ (Vincent Youmans and Irving Caesar), and the most telling when Billy-Boy exposes and then challenges the rock rebel’s junkie secret with touching childlike simplicity.
Like many vinyl B-sides of the past, this is interesting as opposed to enthralling, but the interplay of Mann and McLeod is a plus. It just feels about 10–15 minutes too long – a few cuts and it would be probably be harder hitting, feel a little less ponderous and be more entertaining.
Derek Smith
Readers may also be interested in:
Kathy Kirby: Icon – White Bear Theatre – Review
SHARE THIS POST:
Comments are closed.